Management of post-surgical hip patients may include abduction of the patient's legs to prevent dislocation of the hip during recovery. The patient's legs may be maintained in an abducted position by the placement of a wedge-shaped pillow between the legs. A conventional leg abduction pillow is typically a resilient material such as foam rubber, for example, and may include retention straps, which are fastened around the patient's legs above and below the knees, respectively, to secure the pillow in place.
The use of standard leg abduction pillows to maintain the legs of a post-surgical hip patient in an abducted position may require that the only points of contact between the bed in which the patient lies and the patient's leg be at the buttocks and the heel of the foot. Therefore, the heel supports a major portion of the weight of the leg on the bed. This may potentially and commonly cause the formation of ulcers on the heel. Moreover, neurovascular complications can result in the patient's leg distal to the strap.
Therefore, with the growing elderly population, particularly those elderly persons having diabetes (which may result in neuropathy and/or microvascular disease which also predispose a bed bound patient to secondary heel ulcers), a heel offloading leg abductor pillow is needed which is adapted to maintain the legs of a post-surgical hip patient in an abducted position in such a manner that contact pressure between the bed in which the patient lies and the patient's heels is prevented or at least minimized.